The field of the invention relates to communication systems and, in particular, to communication systems having automatic call distributors.
Automatic call distribution systems are known. Such systems are typically used, for example, within private branch telephone exchanges as a means of distributing telephone calls among a group of agents. While the automatic call distributor may be a separate part of a private branch telephone exchange, often the automatic call distributor is integrated into and is an indistinguishable part of the private branch telephone exchange.
Often an organization disseminates a single telephone number to its customers and to the public in general as a means of contacting the organization. As calls are often directed to the organization from the public switch telephone network, or, the communications network (e.g. the Internet) automatic call distribution system directs the calls to its agents based upon some type of criteria. For example, where all agents are considered equal, the automatic call distributor may distribute the calls based upon which agent has been idle the longest. The agents that are operatively connected to the automatic call distributor may be live agents, and/or virtual agents. Typically, virtual agents are software routines and algorithms that are operatively connected and/or part of the automatic call distributor.
Automatic call distributors are utilized in communications handling centers, such as call centers, that forward incoming communications, such as telephone calls, or other contacts for processing by one of several associated call-handling agents. The term “call” refers herein to any suitable communications including but not limited to, voice-over-Internet protocol communications; electronic mail messages; facsimiles, chat room dialog, instant messages, other Internet contacts. An automatic call distributor is any system which performs the functions of automatically distributing calls to agents while typically maintaining records of the call processing, and may employ a wide variety of architecture made up of software and/or hardware including, for example, integrated centralized systems, distributed systems, systems using one or more personal computers or services, etc. The communication between a caller and an agent may also be referred to as a data session, for example, the exchange of email.
Telephone call centers, for example, are often used to dispatch emergency services, as telemarketing sales centers, as customer service centers, etc. to automatically distribute received calls. Each incoming call may have a number of handling requirements, depending on, for example, the nature of the call, the originating call area, and the language of the call. Agents, on the other hand, each have abilities to process calls having certain handling requirements. Typically, agents are able to process one or more call types. For example, agents are typically trained to process certain call subject matters and certain call languages.
In some known call centers, computerized automatic call distributors place incoming calls, of a particular type, requiring defined skills, in queues of like calls. Appropriate agents have skills necessary to process calls in the queues, and are assigned to such queues. Agents are often assigned to multiple queues, reflective of their particular handling skills. Typically, this is done to increase the handling capacity of the center by making improved use of available communications handling resources.
Quite often, agents may handle calls related to one or more subject areas, and possess varied attributes that are relevant to all subject areas they are capable of handling. For example, a call center agent may speak multiple languages, and may therefore be able to process calls relating to a particular subject matter in all these languages. One simple approach used to deal with multiple agent attributes is to create and administer individual queues, each of which takes into account the subject matter and the attributes of the agent. This, however, is administratively very cumbersome.
Other known call centers use agent-skill indicators, associated with agents in order to connect calls. In such centers, a call is connected to an agent having an agent-skill indicator matching that of the call, within a group of agents. Agents, however, are typically only assignable to only one, and typically only a single agent-skill indicator is used to connect the call. Disadvantageously, such call centers do not use agent attributes across different groups. This may lead to an inefficient utilization of call center resources. Moreover, these communications handling centers do not allow for easy administration and re-assignment of agents to queues, while maintaining agent skill-sets.
One concern in designing an automatic call distributor system is ensuring that calls are efficiently routed to an agent, so as to minimize the amount of time that any particular call is placed on hold. One basic technique of minimizing on-hold time is to employ a first-in/first-out call handling technique. The first-in/first-out technique requires that calls be routed to the next available agent in the order in which the calls are received. However, in some automatic call distributor systems the agents are specialized in handling particular types of calls, so the first-in/first-out technique is not appropriate. For example in a product support department of a software facility, agents might be grouped according to specialized expertise, so that a first group is knowledgeable in word processing, a second group is knowledgeable in a database program, and a third group is knowledgeable in a spreadsheet program. Utilizing a first-in/first-out technique in such a situation is inappropriate, because a caller with a question regarding the word processing program may be routed to an agent having specialized knowledge regarding the database program or the spreadsheet program, rather than being routed to an agent with specialized knowledge in the word processing program.
The focus in the management of calls has been upon maximizing availability to customers, so as to achieve an acceptable profit margin in a competitive environment of customer service. Call management approaches that increase revenue may lead to savings for customers.
Most present-day call-distribution algorithms focus on being “fair” to callers and to agents. This fairness is reflected by the standard first-in, first-out call to most-idle-agent assignment algorithm. Skills-based routing improves upon this basic algorithm in that it allows each agent to be slotted into a number of categories based on the agent's skill types and levels.
The primary objective of call-distribution algorithms is to ultimately maximize call center performance. That may involve minimizing cost, maximizing call throughput, and/or maximizing revenue, among others. For example, when a new call arrives, the call may be handled by an agent who either has the ability to produce the most revenue or can handle the call in the shortest amount of time. Also, when an agent becomes available to handle a new call, the agent may handle either the call that has the possibility of generating the most revenue or the call that the agent is most efficient in handling.
After the caller has been connected to an agent via the automatic call distributor, for example, as described above, the call transaction between the caller and the agent, especially in the case of telemarketing, may begin to degrade. There may be certain indications or danger points that occur during a call transaction, which would indicate that the relationship between the caller and the agent is degrading. However, the agent may not realize that the transaction is in danger or that either the caller and/or agent has reached an emotional level that is not conducive to achieving a successful conclusion to the call transaction. In other words, either the caller nor the agent or both may reach such a negative emotional level such that a sale is lost. In known systems, it is up to the agent to determine when the emotional level has reached a point at which assistance should be requested. In other words, when a situation arises that is unmanageable; it is the agent's determination as to whether a call should be made for assistance. Thus, it is drawback of known systems, especially in telemarketing, that many sales are lost due to the agent not realizing until it is too late that the caller has become too angry or too emotional to achieve a sale.
Systems that perform voice recording and later analysis by the administrator are not real-time in nature and while they may help improve agent behavior they do not allow improvement during a transaction. The evaluator determines any stress analysis performed on the transaction at the time of listening to the recording and stress levels may be missed. Stress analysis performed during the transaction by an automated process can eliminate the human error component and increase the opportunity to improve the quality of the transaction. The administrator or coach can provide immediate corrective action thereby increasing the opportunity for call success rates. Post event measurement tools offer no opportunity to affect the caller and subsequently the outcome of the call.
Current methods often have the contact center supervisor “plug-in” to an agent to perform coaching and assistance but this limits the coach to only helping one agent. There is thus a need for a method that allows the system to determine the transaction in distress and join the coach to the situation. The coach could be available for many contact center agents simultaneously and may be joined with the individual needing assistance. In known systems, the agent can only review the completed data session, such as a transmitted email, after the email has been sent. Of course, any system administrator can review sent and received emails that reside on the server. However, this is inefficient and does not permit intervention during the transaction should intervention be needed.